This farm is home to a disproportionate number of Leos. When you figure there are 6 of us and three are Leos…yeah…we win. The end of July ushers in the season with my now 11 year old [insert freaking out emojis here], then the baby a few weeks later and then my birthday 10 days after that. So the next few posts will be birthday catch up plus eclipse. Because yes. I now understand why people travel ridiculous distances to see total solar eclipses…totally worth it. But first, Hallelujah it was an off year for the boy. Every other year the kids get a big friend party. The way it works out is that all the girls have friend birthdays on one year and Garyn is the opposite year. So his birthday was mercifully low key right in the middle of cupcakes and princess, pink and barbie parties. He wanted to go ice skating. [aside: I have no idea why my kids love ice skating so much. I roller-bladed all through middle school and high school so ice skating isn’t such a stretch, but my kids? It just confuses me.]

I’d known for a while that my little sister wanted to come visit before she heads off to a dance study abroad program on the opposite side of the world. Happily, the dates worked such that she and my mom came down the week of his birthday. It was so fun to see her and teach her to milk a cow…Mei even kicked the bucket over just for her! Also not sure how I thought I could ice skate with two little girls simultaneously by myself had my mom and Baylie not been there…Sometimes I’m delusional.

At one point I had the brilliant idea that I’d just hold Corra and skate. Just needed to not fall, right? Riiiiighhhtttt. I totally wiped out and luckily managed to minimize her impact on the ice. I was asked if we were okay by no less than five fellow skaters (all under the age of 12) It must have truly been a spectacular fall.

The big ones just kept a running tally of their falls. They’d hop right back up again and keep going. I think if we keep to our every other year ice skating excursions, they’ll be passable skaters by the time they leave home. Valuable life skill successfully imparted = check.

Speaking of life skills…every boy should learn how to cook and decorate a cake. Garyn insisted on doing his own cake and I was happy to oblige. He also humored me and let me make it a zucchini cake I’ve been wanting to try as I cook my way through my friends cake cook book. The cake was amazing as all the cakes have been thus far. I’ll talk more about some other cakes we’ve tried in later birthday posts.